Many patients with chronic conditions have difficulty adhering to prescribed therapies. In general, the more medications taken and the more times each day that patients must use various therapies, the more likely there will be a medication error. Often patients have co-morbid conditions that interfere with their adherence to medication regimens. These conditions may include diabetes and associated complications such as blindness or lack of mobility, various neurological conditions and dementias, arthritis and associated difficulties in manipulating devices, and other debilitating conditions. The interactions of various co-morbidities can bring additional complexity and dynamism to medication regimens. Cognition also generally declines with age. Consequently, elderly patients may experience difficulty filling and organizing their medications, and remembering to take them as prescribed. These problems are widely recognized, but there have been no cost-effective solutions to date.
Several solutions to the above problems have been proposed. One category of solutions includes the provision of devices that monitor when the cap of a prescription pill bottle has been removed. This information is stored electronically and may be uploaded to a data network using a remote docking station. This method is convenient for a few medications, but difficult with many medications. In addition, the individual devices are relatively expensive. Aprex's (www.aardex.com) smart pill bottle cap is an example of such a device.
Another category of solutions include the provision of devices related to vending machine concepts. These devices contain a plurality of medications and dispense them at an appropriate time specified by internal software and hardware systems. Few of these devices have been commercialized since they are relatively expensive to manufacture and have limited capacity for various medications. The reliability of these devices in a remote setting is also questionable. The e-pill MD.2 Monitored Automatic Medication Dispenser (www.epill.com) is an example of such a device, although it only dispenses a single medication container.
A third category of solutions include the provision of devices that use a tray which is inserted into a portable device. These trays may be filled with medications as needed. The MEDGlider (www.informedix.com) is an example of such a device. This device has limited capacity for patients with chronic conditions. Also, since the medication tray is not identified to the main device, there may be confusion over which tray should be placed in the device. Finally, this device does not include a medication package that contains all the medications to be taken at a single time. That is, patients using this device must remove each medication sequentially as they are reminded to by systems contained in the main device. This long sequence of taking multiple medications limits the number of patients willing to use this device to those with relatively simple conditions, good cognition and strong motivation.
A fourth category of solutions include the provision of medication management devices, such as organizer/reminder devices. Typically, these devices use small trays or compartments and the patient fills the device as needed. The devices are then self-programmed by patients to remind them to take medications at a specific time. When patients either self-program or self-fill the device, errors can occur. These errors become more common as the complexity of the medication regimen increases. Further, conventional organizer/reminder devices do not prevent these kinds of errors. Since these devices do not assist the user with identifying the medication, do not record or monitor medication usage, and are not connectable to an outside service or information provider, they have limited positive effect on medication adherence.
A fifth category of solutions include the provision of pill containers which contain radio frequency (RF) tags that are sensed on a platform. An example of such a device is disclosed in commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. No. 6,294,999, U.S. Pat. No. 7,369,919, and U.S. Pat. No. 8,417,381, the entire contents of each being incorporated herein by reference. These devices may contain a large number of pill containers on the device, but each pill container is placed individually on the device. This creates some difficulty for the patients using these devices since they have to place a large number of various sized containers randomly on the device; there is also some potential that some containers will be lost. An additional limitation of this approach is the need to fill a large number of medication containers with a number of different medications all taken at a specific time by the patient. These containers must be filled with a high degree of accuracy and precision. In addition, labeling of containers that contain many medications is difficult since the containers may not be large enough to hold a legible label listing required information for each medication in the pill container.
Other commonly-assigned U.S. patents and published international (PCT) applications disclosing related subject matter are listed below, the entire contents of each being incorporated herein by reference.
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Accordingly, a need exists for a system and method to automatically identify a medication to be provided from an adjacent commercial package, identify to a user which compartments of the storage device are to be filled with the identified medication from the commercial package and detect the filling and dispensing of the medication from the storage device.